Ibrahim Babangida Years: Despotism In Full Sail

 By Tony Eluemunor

Please take your mind back to 1990 when Sadd­am Hussein’s Iraq invad­ed and annexed Kuwait; the price of crude petroleum jumped because the ensuing war disrupted oil supplies. A totally unforeseen windfall, earning for Nigeria $12.1 billion. But did the windfall benefit Nigeria? A re­port put it thus: “Fiscal discipline broke down once more (because) established budgetary proce­dures were by-passed and the strategic planning processes that had been established under the Structural Adjustment Pro­gramme were largely ignored. Of major concern was the expendi­ture of the oil revenue without any budgetary authorization.”

*Babangida 

This huge amount of money was fluffed away though Nigerians had by then been suffocating under SAP for four whole years! And wait for this; the 1991 budget suffered a defi­cit spending of N35.5 billion. It was as though that oil bonanza never happened.

I know that those who celebrat­ed former Military President Ibra­him Badamosi Babangida (IBB) as Nigerians best ruler as he turned 80, never failed to mention the Na­tional Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND) the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN) the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DIFRRI) and others as programmes and bodies he established. But have they told us how such benefitted Nigeria?

Take DIFRRI for instance; though the Federal Government contributed 75% of the funds, forc­ing the states and the Local Gov­ernments Areas to shell out 15 and 7% respectively, the states and the LGAs had no input in its DIFRRI’s plans or implementation. By 1991, the DIFRRI directorate had squan­dered over N2 billion, yet the Nige­rian rural areas were as untrans­formed as they were before 1960. Yet, the LGA chairmen had met in Kaduna in 1988 and asked IBB to disband DIFRRI and hand over its duties and finances to them but the strong-willed IBB refused. Others asked that DIFRRI be turned into a ministry. It was only in 1992, when DIFRRI had failed irredeemably that IBB grafted it into the Minis­try of Water Resources and Rural Development.

Pray, how did the Urban Mass Transit System, the Peoples Bank of Nigeria. Please, note that I have not discussed Better Life for Nige­rian Women programme for which then First Lady, the truly comely Miriam Babangida, won numerous awards. Nobody has told me what gain accrued to Nigeria from it.

Ah, may we not forget the blood of the 20 Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Students. May 22 and 23 1996, student riots were quelled by the Police so draconically that 20 students died. The students wanted to mark the eight anniversaries of the bloody Ali Must Go students uprising of 1978. That the students marched into a female hall of resi­dence, Amina Hall, and so broke the rule banning males from the female halls was the unforgivable offence for which the student union leader was rusticated and another student was suspended for a year. The stu­dents were protesting against the rustication of their student leaders, in front of the Senate building when the Police arrived – at the invitation of the Vice Chancellor, Prof Ango Abdullahi.

*Abacha and Babangida 

The VC was not disciplined. When the Nigerian Labour Con­gress (NLC) planned a sympathy protest for June 4, the Labour lead­er, Ali Ciroma and five others were arrested and detained for ten days. Worse was to come. I covered the February 23 -26 1988 NLC delegates conference at Benin-City. Ciroma was clearly re-elected despite the challenge he faced from pro-FG (and FG-sponsored) candidate, Takai Shamang. Immediately af­ter the election, I met Prof Ikenna Nzimiro, a fire-eater whom IBB had invited into the government as an Adviser. Nzimiro told me he would tell IBB that the election was totally free and fair.

As the labour unionists were rel­ishing the victory, singing “solidari­ty forever” Adamu Ciroma stopped the celebration and told them that IBB would annul that election in his attempt to break Labour’s backbone. The unionists said he would not dare do that. Tears were streaking down Ciroma’s cheeks as he spoke. I left Benin for an appoint­ment with Chief Arthur Nzeribe. I was in his Owerri Office when news came that IBB had nullified the NLC election and appointed a Sole Ad­ministrator.

IBB also dealt with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASSU). 1987, The University of Benin, un­der Prof Alele Williams had sacked five Professors including Dr. Festus Iyayi (ASUU national chairman), Prof Epiphany Azinge, Prof Itse Sagay, among others. The local ASSU branch went to court and won an interim victory that the Profes­sors be reinstated. IBB’s reaction: he issued Decree 36 to back the sack to “shut up” both ASSU’s and the court’s mouths. The real sledge hammer landed when IBB banned ASSU from July 7, 1988 till August 27, 1990. That was apart from the sacking of “radicals”, “leftists” and such others who were “teaching what they were not paid to teach” in disregard of existing laws. IBB’s Education Minister in those trying times was a former Vice Chancellor of University of Maiduguri, Prof Jubril Aminu, now a Senator. That was the beginning of the exodus of lecturers from Nigerian universi­ties; the brain. IBB would later in 1992 proscribe ASSU for a second time and universities remained closed for months.

Yet, in newspaper advert after an­other, many celebrated IBB recount­ed how he changed the Nigerian polity. They were right, he tinkered with everything Nigerian, and left a big mess.

Yet, he offered no apology to Nigerians and gave no credible excuse for his consequential mis­steps.

Ah, 28 long years have elapsed since IBB annulled the June 12, 1993 election, saying then: “To proclaim and swear in a President who has encouraged a campaign of divide and rule amongst our various ethnic groups would have been detrimental to the survival of the Republic”.

Who decided that the winner of that election, the late MKO Abio­la had become too divisive to be sworn in as President? IBB did not say. Yet, that such a wishy-washy excuse could have been offered to Nigerians in the heat of that an­nulment speaks volumes about how IBB viewed Nigerians then. It also says much about how IBB ran his presidency.

What could at best be said about him was that he acted like a child at play. It was all a game to him; to see how much he could throw his tantrums, indulge his capric­es, fads, and whims. Whatever fancies or impulses that seized his verdant imagination received venting and woe betide anyone who stood against IBB’s desires of that moment; he would be crushed mercilessly. Though IBB was a President, and was leading the country through the woods, making promises and cancelling promises and springing up new ones over an eight-year period, he did not know that Nigerians were tired of his unending shifting of the goalposts. That was how, most lackadaisically, he took the deci­sion to annul the June 12 election. It was despotism in full sail.

I will refresh IBB’s mind a little. On the morning of June 23, 1993, the exact day he annulled that elec­tion, IBB was preparing to attend the funeral of the First Republic Minister of Lagos Affairs, Alhaji Musa Yar’Ádua. Casually, most casually, he instructed the Justice Minister and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Akpamgbor, to draft a statement annulling the election. He must have left an­other instruction with Clement Akpamgbor because before the President returned, that press statement had been circulated to the press by the Press Secretary to Vice-President Augustus Aik­homu, who died ten years ago.

So, what stopped Babangida from explaining to the National Defence and Security Council in early July that an Abiola Presiden­cy was doomed to be truncated by a coup? That meeting lasted for three days as officers engaged in shouting matches because most officers wanted Abiola to be de­clared President. Col. Abubakar Umar sent in a retirement letter in protest. That Council decided to throw a carrot to the politicians; that another election be conducted before August 27 in which the two presidential candidates would come from the South. It was an impossi­ble sell to the politicians, and it was after it had been effectively killed did IBB settle on ING.

Now, please remember that IBB told Daily Trust this month that Abacha’s overthrow of the ING proved his decision not to handover to Abiola, for fear of a coup, right. Yet, the decision to make Abacha the only military member of the ING, was entirely IBB’s. This also shows that IBB could have made Abacha to retire with him on Au­gust 27, but he chose not to.

The Military High Command had decided that IBB and AIkhomu should retire and leave office on Au­gust 27, 1993, the Chief of Defence Staff, Service Chiefs and the Inspec­tor-General of Police would remain at their duty posts, IBB shot down this decision after a meeting be­tween him and Abacha alone. Thus, IBB included something new into the ING Decree 61; that if a crisis broke out, the Secretary of Defence (Abacha) being the most senior army officer should assume power.

Dear Nigerians, the great deci­sion to annul the June 12 election, and also to leave Abacha as the strong arm in ING, were taken as casually as was shown above. That was IBB’s stock in trade. He behaved as though he had purchased Nigeria and could do anything he wanted with it. That was how he smuggled Nigeria into the Organisation of Is­lamic Conference (OIC); shameful and totally disdainful.

September 1969, the late Alhaji Abubakar Gumi, then Grand Khadi of Northern Nigeria headed a dele­gation to attend an OIC meeting in Morocco. The then Head of State, Gen Yakubu Gowon quickly dis­patched a letter to the Moroccan King Hassan that the delegation was not representing Nigeria. Thus, Gumi and his team were not fully admitted but were recognized as observers. OIC kept inviting Ni­geria to become a full member but the Gowon, Murtala/Obasanjo, She­hu Shagari and the Mohammadu Buhari administrations refused. The OIC invited Nigeria again in December 1985 to its ministerial conference, in Morocco from 6th to 10th January 1986. Ahmadu Ham­za, Permanent Secretary, External Affairs Ministry, by-passed his Min­ster, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, and took the invitation straight to IBB. With IBB’s approval, Rilwanu Lukman headed a delegation that included Alhaji Abubakar AlhajiAbubakar Gumi, Abdulkadir Ahmed and Ibra­him Dasuki to join OIC. The Coun­cil of Ministers never discussed it. Perhaps, the OIC affair was one of the great achievements for which Nigerians celebrated IBB as he turned 80.

The OIC internet website con­tains this: “The Organization has the singular honor to galvanize the Ummah into a unified body and have actively represented the Mus­lims by espousing all causes close to the hearts of over 1.5 billion Mus­lims of the world. The Organization has consultative and cooperative relations with the UN and other intergovernmental organizations to protect the vital interests of the Muslims and to work for the set­tlement of conflicts and disputes involving Member States. In safe­guarding the true values of Islam and the Muslims, the organization has taken various steps to remove misperceptions and has strongly advocated elimination of discrimi­nation against Muslims in all forms and manifestations”.

Now, there is no space to discuss the Newswatch Editor-in-Chief, Dele Giwa’s assassination via let­ter bomb, October 1986. No, it is inconceivable that IBB could have ordered or even approved it, just as those who knew Abacha swear he could never have ordered that Mrs. Kudirat Abiola be murdered. IBB’s sin is that he did little to uncover the killers, perhaps overzealous securi­ty hands, though he had the Federal might at his disposal.

*Eluemunor is a commentator on public issues (teluemunor@gmail.com)